Foi: Freedom Of Information Or Freedom Of Inmates?

Prisoners Exploiting Law

A man named Devon Smith wrote to the state Department of Public Health in September asking for any and all information about a water pollution problem in Somers.

The health department readily complied with his freedom of information request, giving him a dozen pages of material: inspection reports and test results, pretty dry reading.

But buried in the stack of documents was something else -- something that a man like Smith could use: a topographical map showing all the natural landmarks, elevations and streets surrounding the state prison complex on the Enfield- Somers border.

Smith, you see, is an inmate doing a 60-year stretch for murder at the maximum-security Northern Correctional Institution in Somers. And if he had any designs about going for a walk outside the fence -- or digging a tunnel under it -- the map would come in mighty handy.

Smith's return address at prison was clearly written on his FOI request, and so was his inmate number. Why, then, would state officials knowingly give a convict a map of the prison grounds and surrounding area?

They say they had to under the law.

But now state Department of Correction officials are trying to get legislators to change that law.

They say they want to avoid having to comply with a growing stream of freedom of information requests from prisoners -- who show endless creativity and audacity in trying to exploit the state's FOI law for their own purposes.

``Someone who has nothing to do but sit in a cell and think all the time can think of things that the ordinary citizen doesn't have time to come up with,'' said Capt. Scott Semple, a spokesman for the Department of Correction. ``Some inmates are constantly looking for ways to get around the system.''

The request for the Somers prison map is just one of many brazen examples of how inmates have used the state's FOI law in the past year to jeopardize security and harass prison workers, correction officials said.

Other examples, as listed in a correction department internal memo last week, were:

* A request by a Level 5 inmate -- the most dangerous classification in the state's prison system -- sought tax records and home addresses of several female staff members at the prison in which he was incarcerated; he was due for release within three months.

* Requests by inmates for ``security-sensitive'' documents such as a staffing roster and log books that detail how often guards make their rounds.

* A request by an inmate for reports and other documents that might have been used ``to determine the identities of rival gang members.''

In 1998, prison inmates made 189 FOI requests to the Department of Correction -- a total that represented more than 60 percent of the 302 requests that the agency received that year. Inmates also peppered other state or federal agencies with FOI inquiries, according to the memo by Karl G. Lewis, a prison counseling supervisor who handles FOI requests for the correction department.

``A great many of these requests are frivolous or malicious,'' Lewis wrote in the Jan. 13 memo.

Under the state's Freedom of Information Act, many sensitive documents are public and available to anyone who asks, including prison inmates, said Mitchell W. Pearlman, executive director and general counsel of the state Freedom of Information Commission. The inmates could even ask for the blueprints of the prison itself, complete with details about security systems, Pearlman said.

``There's no separate class of people [under the FOI law] for inmates that makes them different than anybody else,'' Pearlman said.

The home addresses of prison workers are confidential under the FOI law. And prison officials can deny requests for sensitive information because inmates are not allowed to possess materials that could cause security risks. That is what ultimately happened with Smith; when guards found him in possession of the map, they confiscated it, Semple said.

But Semple added that resourceful inmates can get the information from other sources, including other state agencies or the assessors in area towns where prison staff members might live.

Several key state lawmakers said they will support restricting inmates' access to sensitive information as long as the restrictions are not so broad that they block legitimate requests. They expect to craft a bill and hold legislative hearings on the issue as early as February.

But the example of the map illustrates the difficulty lawmakers face as they seek to solve the problem: How can they change the FOI law to keep prisoners from getting information about an area surrounding a prison without denying that same information to a law-abiding citizen who might find the information useful, or even essential?

The state of Texas addressed the problem by barring inmates from any access to public documents. But Pearlman said he would oppose that. For one thing, he said, many inmates make legitimate requests for records pertaining to their court cases. For another, Pearlman added, ``It wouldn't do any good anyway -- because an inmate could just get his cousin to get it.''

Virginia, meanwhile, passed a law in 1998 that prohibits access by anyone -- law-abiding citizen or prison inmate -- to sensitive prison documents, including security manuals and architectural drawings of prisons.

The Connecticut Department of Correction's proposal would exempt any public agency from disclosing any records that ``would endanger the security or order'' of a prison or its staff.

Pearlman said the proposal is too broad, giving government agencies too much power to deny legitimate FOI requests, but he pledged to work with correction officials.